Historic Videos

The preservation of old Laboratory film footage is part of Brookhaven Lab’s broader Cultural Resource Management program. Brookhaven had a collection of aging 16-mm film reels documenting the Lab’s scientific and institutional history, and in 2000, the films were transferred to high-quality Betacam SP videotapes so the content could be preserved and accessed. The Laboratory’s current Cultural Resource Management Plan identifies this as project CRP-2000-04, “Historic Film Reel Conversion.” In accordance with the plan, a list of the resulting tapes is listed in the BNL Historic Film-to-Tape Conversion Inventory.

The film archive is an audiovisual record of early Brookhaven Lab and includes footage of the Alternating Gradiant Synchrotron (AGS), Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR), High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR), bubble chambers, ISABELLE accelerator work, superconducting magnets, the 140-foot telescope/observatory, early medical and biological research, aerial/site footage from the 1960s, and other experiments and construction projects. Some reels have sound, while others appear to be raw or stock footage.

Brookhaven Lab maintains this material as historic preservation. The Environmental Protection Division's Cultural Resource Management program is responsible for preserving resources associated not only with Camp Upton and historic buildings, but also with historic scientific programs and discoveries in high-energy physics, research reactors, and other Brookhaven research. The film archive is one piece of that larger effort to document the Lab's scientific heritage.

For additional information about this program, check out this article.